For all the chatter about whether video-streaming company earnings calls could be“the next big thing,” it’s worth pointing out someone who was ahead of the curve with this one: former J.C. Penney Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson.

Johnson, the charismatic ex-Apple retail chief who was ousted from the department-store company in April after a 17-month tenure, gave a live presentation of first-quarter earnings in New York City in May 2012 followed by a Q&A with “members of the financial community.” It was available via streaming video online.

That tradition continued for the second and third quarters. For the disastrous fourth quarter, however, Johnson conducted the broadcast from the company’s Plano, Texas, headquarters rather than New York City.

So as Yahoo prepares to live stream a video broadcast of quarterly results later today and Netflix takes the more unorthodox approach of video-streaming a discussion moderated by an analyst and CNBC reporter later this month, Johnson should feel good about at least getting this trend right.